A number of the track titles don’t match with the songs because: MySpace. Get a Bandcamp site, Ryan! The album’s due Dec. 14. Here’s my review. [MySpace]

All photos by David Greenwald

As expected, a pretty amazing show from one of the year’s best new bands. Somehow I don’t remember Stella Mozgawa being indie rock’s best drummer when I saw them in Austin, but that appears to have changed. Also, this was the first time I’ve stepped inside the Troubadour since maybe Bill Callahan back in July 2009. Curse you, Echo Park!

Best of 2010: EPs/Singles | Songs | Albums | Rawky Awards

The album isn’t dead. But, like the dinosaurs, it may not outlast its smaller, warm-blooded colleagues. In 2010, the EP became something more than a tour curio or a year-end reminder of a band’s existence. For bands unable or unwilling to make the artistic and financial investment of a full-length release, the EP became the perfect format: long enough to showcase what a band could do without being too short to pass off as a one-MP3 wonder and just right for self-releasing and giving away free, as so many groups chose to do this year. For this Twitter-addled writer, sub-20-minute run-times meant I ended up reaching for EPs and singles, for the first time, much more often than I did albums. Though the year’s best handful of statements did come in LP form, I consider this list nearly interchangeable with my album of the year list and hope you will, too. Making an album is always a gamble, but for the bands on this list, going short was a sure thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, Ravens & Chimes’ first official video! A beautifully shot effort from director Josh Shayne that mixes performance footage with a lonely New York (and sweet kicks).

Previously: Ravens & Chimes on Rawkblog Live | New Music: ‘Division Street’

Rawky Awards voting is still in session. You have until Sunday. Go! Crussssh! Year-end stuff goes all next week:

Monday: EPs/Singles
Tuesday: Rawky Awards
Wednesday: Songs
Thursday: Concerts/Photos
Friday: Albums

A few truths I hold to be self-evident:

In defense of the word “Best”: The word “best,” when applied to art and specifically to year-end lists of pop albums, does not mean “Best of all the thousands of possible releases of the year.” It means “The best albums this particular critic was able to or chose to listen to this year.” Part of the job of being a critic, if you consider yourself one (and I do, and measure myself by that standard), is to decide what you will listen to, through what filters you will hear more and what you will avoid in the very limited time there is to listen to, absorb and pass judgment upon said releases. There will always be good albums and artists which fall through the cracks; however, if a critic does his or her job, frankly, there shouldn’t be that many. In other words: “Best,” coming from someone who gives a shit, ought to come pretty damn close.

In defense of “Best” over “Favorite”: Art contains both subjective and objective elements — some, of course, has more of one than the other. A singer’s timbre may be alternatively irritating or endearing depending on the listener. Within genre comparisons, one can approach objective judgments, but the inescapable — and necessary! — element of instinctual feeling and emotional reaction means, ultimately, no two people will ever agree on an all-encompassing hierarchy. In other words: There is no Platonic ideal for what makes a great song or a great album. (Except for maybe the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.”) This is what’s incredible about music: There are infinity ways to write and arrange and record and create it and an equally infinite amount of ways to enjoy it. My point here is that we as listeners create standards for what we enjoy based on culture, context, listening history, natural response, etc. Based on my personal standards — which are the only standards anyone can honestly have — the albums that I love the most are by default the ones I consider the best of the year. It would be nonsensical to classify them otherwise because there is no such thing as everyone’s best album of the year. Would you even want one? My favorites are my best.

Here’s where I think people get hung up: Read the rest of this entry »

I have mixed feelings about Laura Marling’s sophomore album. It’s more assured and confidently arranged and performed than her winning debut, but, like Midlake’s latest album, its sense of joy seems missing in action. She’s never been the most optimistic performer, but things seem dimmer here than on Alas I Cannot Swim. Rays of sunshine do land in “Darkness Descends” (oddly enough) and the self-assertion ballad “Goodbye England”; it’s all utterly lovely, her beyond-her-years vocals hovering over acoustic guitars and string sections as her lyrics chase after Dylan and Van Morrison’s mythic journeys. After Joanna Newsom, it’s probably the folk album of this slight (for the genre) year, frankly. Still, the underlying good feeling of Alas I Cannot Swim would’ve been a nice addition (not to mention its sharper hooks). LP3 awaits.

Laura Marling – “Goodbye England”: mp3

(I Speak Because I Can is out now)

In a year deluged with jangling guitars and vocals drowning in enough reverb to kill a Olympic swimmers, please summon the strength to listen to Crushed Stars’ Convalescing in Braille with fresh ears. Like The Radio Dept. or, before them, Yo La Tengo, the band’s lonely pop places craft first. Even its simplest moments seem examined for maximum headphones richness: how the lightly clipping drums of “Spark” contrast with singer Todd Gautreau’s distant, wounded vocals; reaching the bottom of of the 10-foot-deep cymbals of “Black Umbrellas”; the firmness of piano keys against warbling synthesizers on “A Day Without You.” It’s less treble-heavy and propulsive than the Radio Dept.’s latest efforts, but the songs also explore feelings of landlocked loneliness. “You look at me that way again / and I will fall,” Gautreau sings on “Fall.” In love, we can only assume, but few have ever sounded more beautifully miserable at the prospect.

Crushed Stars – “Eyeliner”: mp3

(Convalescing in Braille is out now)

Previously: Interview: Crushed Stars